Barking Spiders

5 hours ago, Supernaut said:

I can't think of another guitarist who had a greater impact on not only the music but the image and influence on the genre. Hendrix is number one for a reason. 

 Yeah but mainly because he was active in a  music genre made popular by radio and other music media in English speaking countries. If classical, jazz, folk or country had the same degree of mass appeal then we might be talking about Segovia, Joe Pass, John Fahey or Chet Atkins instead as the GOAT

Sort of related in a blues rock vein. I've never much cared for blues rock guitar but I've come across two young guys who've converted me a bit Kingfish Ingram and Gary Clark Jnr. Excellent stuff they're doing.

I've checked out a lot of unfamiliar names outside the top 50 whom I'd never heard of, mostly happened to be indie bands,women and bluesy/folk players from way back in history.  I gave a fair listen to recommended tracks but all those in the indie/punk/alt bands and soul/funk are IMO 100% mediocre. Nothing in their playing made my jaw drop or sit up and think 'wow'. On the plus side I give 👍to Etta James and Molly Tuttle, both of whom are excellent but then there are many other ground breaking fingerstyle and flatpicking players respectively that are even better.

Dare I say it but the list smacks of wokery. E.g there's some non-binary person called El Kempner from some pretty dire indie/punk outfit called Palehound. Not impressive. There are some blind players but then Jeff Healey smokes all of them and he's not included.

Unsurprisingly, the list of contributors includes no players of any note. They're just music hacks for an increasingly irrelevant rag that's decades past its sell-by date and clearly are trying to get attention with their clickbait lists. And it's working to some extent though I won't be subscribing. 

I guess you might've just woken from cryogenic freezing if you weren't aware of Rolling Stone's latest opus of $hyt3, its 250 Greatest Guitarists list 😁. When it comes to these there's only one criterion that should be a qualifying factor, and it's not 'influence', the most overused word when it comes to make any judgement about anything. Adolf was 'influential'. Kim Kardashian's 'influential'. That criterion is how well someone can play which encompasses technique, feel, tone, clarity, fluency, choice of notes in improvisation, the whole kit and caboodle. My own 'mental' greatest players list include the likes of Danny Gatton, Chet Atkins, Leo Kottke, Albert Lee, George Benson, Paco de Lucia and Tommy Emmanuel. BTW Hendrix isn't even in my top 50, which is topped by this guy. In a just world he'd top all greatest guitarist lists but as it is he's not really known outside of country music. 

Tried the Bjork album. Listened to the first two tracks and then 30-60 second bits of the remaining ones. I really didn't like it, not one bit. Then again I don't like Bjork's solo stuff or the the Sugarcubes other than the Play Dead track done with David Arnold. For some reason her odd voice works really well there.

When you're playing bass at a gig ...does your face err more towards ...

this 

or ....this 

Off the top of my head, these tunes in particular tug at the ole heart strings

Not bad at all but then again the post punky vibe is right up my street. Reminds me of 80s 'Peel'  bands like Josef K, The Room and The Sound. One listen through so far but I give 7/10.

1 hour ago, EssentialTension said:

 

I appreciate that Basschatters have to post about something .... but really .... when should threads such as this old topic just call it a day?? It's embarrassing when everything has already been said and yet we get the same old topic, on tour again, every few months, or every year at the least .... Please .... It's had its time .... enough is enough. No?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

😜

but that's just life innit, a (not so) merry-go-round of routine, the repetitive and the overly familiar. Sure we repeat much of the same old BS but that's for the benefit of BC newbies rather than the old lags who've been around here a few aeons 😉

4 hours ago, PaulWarning said:

 the Undertones are my favourite and to be fair they're all the originals (the drummer was temporarily missing the last time I saw them) except for Fergal, and Paul the new(ish) singer does a good job, SLF still have Jake Burns and Ali McMordie as originals, but I can't take Jake Burns seriously, he's put that much weight on and wears ridiculous shirts, shaved his head now, I did used to wonder whether he wore a wig.

Seeing the Buzzcocks at the Scarborough Punk Fest next year, not sure about that one tbh, no Pete Shelley is hard to imagine, the Ruts are good value, are they still Ruts DC? seen the Stranglers a few times I sometimes think they're just going through the motions, just one original now, wouldn't pay to see them unless they're on at a Festival I'm going to anyway.

And that's the rub, the Undertones are the only ones I'd pay to see at a stand alone gig, the others just happen to be on at a festival I'm attending.

 The Stranglers have been a fave band of mine from the time I half-inched my older sister's 45s till the departure of Hugh Cornwall. I couldn't warm to anyone else in his role. The great thing about the Stranglers is that long before they got too aged, they ditched their aggressive style in favour of the more radio friendly mellow material, which is still largely great. If those other bands I named and others had done similarly I might not be so harsh in my POV. And a Buzzcocks without Pete Shelly is pointless IMO.  As for the Undertones, I wish they'd had more luck when they partly morphed into the excellent That Petrol Emotion.

9 hours ago, PaulWarning said:

I get the impression that the artists that some BCers think ought to pack it in are the artists the never liked much when they were at their peak

Ha ha you've rumbled us......to an extent, well at least me anyway. I've never liked the Stones, Who, Kiss, Aerosmith, Foreigner,  Queen, Rod Stewart and many other classic rock bands still on the legacy circuit.  That said I'm a tad disappointed to see some first generation punk/new wave and 80s synth/pop/new romantic acts still at it. Viz punk I thought one of the ideas was to burn bright and then burn out quickly but no as the likes of the Undertones, SLF, Ruts DC, Buzzcocks, Stranglers - or rather new iterations with maybe just 1 or 2 original members - still tour.

6 hours ago, EssentialTension said:

 

 

Ch***t almighty but now we know who's to blame. Bowie and Ferry were/are terrible singers but this bloke is even worse 

I've pretty much got to a point where any progress I make is tinily incremental. Over the years my target has been to nail such and such basslines. After 35 years I think I've now exhausted my list of 'musts' to get off pat. Not sure where to go from here now

No 

3 hours ago, chris_b said:

 

Neither could Brian Ferry, so why didn't the "authorities" ban them years ago?

Yes indeed. That's what happens in an industry with no quality control. BTW who was the first to sing in that very affected way of Bowie, Ferry, Jim Kerr?

1 hour ago, TimR said:

 

Lots of ageism and sexism at display. How comes Tom Jones is great for going out and entertaining but Madonna isn't? 

Maybe because TJ has some dignity about him, something Madge has never had at any age

2 hours ago, NancyJohnson said:

There's certainly a ton of bands out there that are still gigging when they're well past theur sell-by date, but if tickets sell then they'll keep doing shows.

 

Look at recent/ongoing/upcoming tours by Kiss, Motley Crue/Def Leppard, Elton John, Madonna, Stevie Nicks (and so on); IMO these should all have hung up their boots many years ago, but until people stop paying £250 for a seat in the gods to watch a lipsynching granny in basque cavort about with dancers half her age, then they'll keep doing it.

 

 

Yup, I just don't geddit. Ha ha not just a lipsynching granny in a basque, but a lipsynching granny in a basque and fishnet stockings. Hmmmm nice!! It was either this year's Glasto or last least year's where the combined age of all the people in the headline and second tier acts was over 1,200 years!

9 hours ago, Dad3353 said:

 

Just like most pub bands..? 

from the many I've seen and heard ...yes unfortunately

1 hour ago, TheGreek said:

I'm with @Rayman on this.

Far too many formerly famous people just doing it for the money. 

Give it up...

If these ageing bands were coming out with interesting and different material then fair dos. Thing is, in the vast majority of cases it's the same old same old.

3 hours ago, Baloney Balderdash said:

I'm usually not into pop, but:

 

I like this track. Checked out a bunch of other tunes of theirs but they're too US type rock for my taste

3 hours ago, Reggaebass said:

I’ve got hundreds of great reggae basslines but most here don’t like reggae so I’m going to go with one that I think makes the song 

 

I likes me some 70s dub -Lee Scratch Perry, King Tubby and Scientist in particular -and like some regular reggae e.g Toots &b The Maytals, Black Uhuru. But you're right, within the BCverse, like electronica, it seems to be a niche thing with just a few followers.  Anyway, this guy sure isn't niche and this is one hell of a reggae-ish bassline 

are they in fact pretty s*** hot  and are comparing themselves to Victor Wootten. Time to come clean 😁

I can think of few but here's a couple of big faves. OK so the guy on bass isn't Anthony Jackson and it's played faster here than expected but it's live

and my 3rd fave New Order track

Viz my own playing there are some techniques I've never bothered learning - e.g tapping -  as they're mostly used in genres that don't interest me. So in that respect I'd say my playing is limited due to my taste.

1 hour ago, TimR said:

I'm not sure. 

 

There are some styles I don't need to play and hence don't listen to out of choice. Reggae and anything with slap bass. 

 

I can play Reggae but it doesn't sound authentic to my ears, I have to try too hard and that's not the way to play music. 

 

I can't slap. Have tried but don't have the enthusiasm (or requirement) to practice day after day. But I guess unless someone offered me loads of money to play something I can't  that's not going to change. 

 

So 'limited' is a bit of an odd description. 

restricted? narrow? diminished? incommodious?. Another way of putting it is guess is playing within your own b

3 hours ago, Dad3353 said:

little time for rudimentary dross such as repetitive EDM, disco, 'funk' and others. Doubtless great to dance to, if well lubricated and physically fit, but with little for the ear alone, for the most part. If this means that I'm limited by my tastes, so be it; I'll accept that as a bonus. 

😲😧🤯😱😰

30 minutes ago, Leonard Smalls said:

Indeed... As a kid I was dragged to the opera, and the ballet, and concerts of all sorts ranging from Peter Katin playing Beethoven, to Askenhazy playing Rachmaninov and the Vienna Boys Choir doing that annoying angelic thing.  

surely that's tantamount to child abuse? where was Esther Rantzen when you needed her?

My olds were big CM fans. Not much of interest in their record collection for me. I quite like a fair few tone poems and suites from the Romantic era but I can't be doing with opera, concertos, symphonies, lieder and solo piano pieces, apart from Eric Satie stuff. 

31 minutes ago, SteveXFR said:

 

Well yes but my point is that very, very few people who aren't musicians will have any interest in it

Ain't that a fact. I've known several people - all blokes at that, no ladies - who've been into prog, jazz fusion, shred guitar, symphonic metal etc and all of them have been fairly advanced players of their instrument...so to speak!😁. No non-musicians I've known even know what these genres are.